


Dichotomous

by versaphile



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-06
Updated: 2008-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-25 10:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/638143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/versaphile/pseuds/versaphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor after <i>Journey's End</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dichotomous

He has friends, a family, even. He knows that. He's not _that_ blinded to the wonderful people all over the place who will greet him with open arms and a wide smile. They love him, and he loves them. But he still can't look at them, can't sit still and have tea, without it hurting.

He thought casting out the murderous shade of himself would help. The part of himself that would kill the Daleks trapped forever in an alternate universe, safely away. Out of sight, out of mind. But he looks at his children of Time and in them sees himself, sees the man who _always would_. Not never, _never never_ ; never is a fairytale he tells himself, tells the universe, tells those who kill because there has to be an ideal, there has to be something better than blood and loss and hate. There _has_ to be, or he might as well build the reality bomb himself. Might as well let the Daleks win, over and over and over in an endless War that he can never escape.

He wanted to show them the wonders of the universe. The beautiful things, the diamond waterfalls and the frozen seas. The small, exquisite beauties and the vast ones, the ones that make you feel so small, so terribly small and yet so filled with joy at the understanding that _yes_ , oh _yes_ , all of existence is here so this can happen.

But instead: Martha ready to destroy the Earth she once walked for a year to save. Jack and Sarah Jane, oh Sarah Jane not you, proudly displaying their bomb. And Donna with that gun in her hand, with his mind in her head, all of it killing her because that's what he does. Lessens. Destroys. Takes the good, imperfect humans and makes them _better_. Better _soldiers_ , saluting him when a salute feels like a slap in the face. He never knew how much he hated war until he became the general at the front lines.

If Donna was here, he could talk to her. But without her, he doesn't want to talk to anyone. A silent, empty TARDIS is what he has, and maybe that's all he _should_ have, and not the bustling crowded joyful fullness of a TARDIS with more than enough pilots. 

But that doesn't explain why when he thinks of all of them together, he wants that so much he trembles. And it doesn't explain why every time he visits them, he finds himself unable to stay.


End file.
